Essie Smokin' Hot + Zoya Kristen & Hazel

Hi, and welcome to my most favoritest (hush, I know that's not a real word, but it should be) mani in ages:

I love this so much that I'm wearing it for an unprecedented 3rd day.  As someone who changes her nails every 1-2 days, this is high praise indeed. I think I'm actually going to be a little sad when it's time to remove this one.  Not a lot sad, because you know....it's just polish....but it'll be a little bit of a bummer.  I may pick a different color combo and do just the freehand swipes (on my thumb) as a full mani....

 

More pics after the jump...

Folder Dump Saturday!

Confession time:  my memory sucks.  There's a comedienne, Kathleen Madigan I think (but don't hold me to that), who does a sketch about how there just isn't enough room in the brain to remember every little detail, particularly as we age.  I have found that to be extremely, positively true.  I can remember important stuff...for the most part....but details and everyday minutiae are just GONE unless I write it down somewhere.

Now, apply this concept to my 1+ year long nail polish hobby, where I've been taking photos of my manis and putting them into a computer folder, but only recently started this blog for documentation/sharing purposes....and you can imagine that I have a LOT of manis where I just cannot for the life of me remember what polishes I used.  I'm using a better system now, but there are tons of photos sitting on my computer that don't have notes, and they need a home on this blog.

Enter today's post, where I dump photos of the manis I've done, add notes if I remember anything about them, and call it a day.  Actually, I'm calling it "Folder Dump".  :)  Fair warning that the photos are sometimes crap quality (as are the manis themselves!) but hopefully you'll forgive that in favor of seeing fun and simple designs and/or random swatches:

(oooooo, boy....these are worse than I remembered....I'll keep the images small....eeeeek)

Christmas 2012...I think that base color was from the ELF mini pack from last year....loved this little tree, will definitely be doing that again this December.

More after the jump:

NOTD: Zoya Nimue & Trixie

Courtesy of Zoya's recent promos and a local beauty supply store shutting down one of their locations and selling everything at 40-50% off, I've recently amassed quite a collection of my favorite polish brand.  In fact, tomorrow's mail should bring another box of pretties since I took advantage of Zoya's Spirit Trios promo to get a few good basic colors that I hadn't purchased yet.  I seriously looooove Zoya, it's a problem.  :)  Not all of their colors/formulas have worked for me, but I'd say at least 90% of the ones I've tried have been awesome and I love how their line is 5-Free AND they're based in Cleveland.  I'm a born and raised Ohioan and got married in Cleveland, so I'm glad to support an Ohio company as often as I can.

Anyway, I recently decided to do a little simple nail art using two of my newer untried Zoya's...Nimue and Trixie:

Nimue is a lovely dusty purple with a strong silver shimmer and paired really well with Trixie, a silver foil that was super easy to use with one of my cut-down art brushes.  For a while, the only silver polish I had was Essie No Place Like Chrome, which is a great staple for any polish collector, but it always struck me as a little harsh as a full mani or accent nail (NPLC is a great stamping and/or detail polish, though).  Enter Trixie, which isn't as "smooth" in appearance as NPLC, courtesy of the foily-er (making up words is FUN!) particles that break up the finish just a little more.  Which probably makes no sense.  Both polishes are great in formula and I'm glad I have both, but Trixie's overall appearance on my nails is just more aesthetically pleasing to me.

More pics after the jump...

Blue & Silver French with Essie!

Woohoooo, two posts in one day....I have a LOT of photos to post.  However, I must admit that I can't remember exactly what polishes I used for many of the older pics.  Oh well, I'll still post 'em since I'm considering this blog a "nail polish photo diary" of sorts. 

One reason I wanted to start this blog is that I appreciate all of the other nail polish bloggers who post about their experiences, whether it's from swatching or nail-of-the-day or collections reviews, etc.  I am especially grateful for anyone who posts/posted about random polishes that have nothing to do with collections or trends or reviews because since I'm new to this obsession, I'm building my collection based on what I like in any/all random stores and many of these polishes just don't seem to have been blogged about.  So one goal I have for this tiny little space on the interwebs is to help out anyone who's standing in the store with their smartphone, wondering if they should get that polish and turning to Google to help them make the decision.  Cuz guess what?  I've done that myself, a lot!

So next up is this cool little tape mani I did back in January...which explains why I can't quite say for sure what polishes I used (except the silver).  Ooops.  :-)

Here is Essie Smooth Sailing, a lovely light denimy blue with pretty silver shimmer, with tips done in Essie No Place Like Chrome (sorry for the blurry pic):

I used Washi tape for the french tips...love it for the low-tack and inexpensive option to using painters tape or striping tape.

Here is the same mani gussied up with dark purple dots the next day, please don't ask what it was because my brain has looooong since forgotten:

Smooth Sailing is one of my very favorite, go-to blues since it's flattering on my fair skin tone and it's just so goshdurn pretty!!!